Nursing firm setting up gathering of centenarians
HACKENSACK, N.J. — Calling all centenarians: You’re invited to a party.
A New Jersey nursing and rehabilitation company wants to set the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people age 100 and older. The event is scheduled for May 19 at the Regency Heritage Nursing and Rehabilitation in Somerset, N.J.
The centenarian record is 28, which occurred at a Sept. 25, 2009, tea party in Leigh- on-Sea, England, that was organized by a member of Parliament.
Marie Barnes, marketing director of Regency Nursing and Rehabilitation Centers, which also has facilities in Wayne, Dover and Hazlet, hopes to round up at least 50 centenarians and their family members for the luncheon celebration. She’s spreading word to county offices on aging and other nursing and retirement centers. But Guinness has imposed two requirements: The centenarian must produce an official birth certificate (a copy will do) and sit for a 10-minute group portrait.
“I have 25 on my list to date,” Barnes said. “Realistically, I will lose some, but we will get some more.”
Barnes said the four Regency centers have 12 centenarians, most in good shape. She acknowledged that the birth certificate requirement could be an obstacle to participation in the world record attempt but said family members of a few of the Regency centenarians are looking for the paperwork.
The 2010 census counted 53,364 centenarians in the United States and 1,769 in New Jersey. Those figures are most certainly higher now, as centenarians are the fastest-growing age group.
A recent article in The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record about the increasing ranks of centenarians mused about the identity of the oldest person in New Jersey. Official records aren’t kept, and the article speculated that George Eberhardt of Chester, who was born Sept. 29, 1904 — which makes him one day shy of 108½ — could be the oldest New Jerseyan. He isn’t. Tenaf ly, N. J., boasts someone born Sept. 14, 1904: Sister Mary Victor Waters, who resides in the convent of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters on Knickerbocker Road.
Sister Victor, as she is known, spends her days praying, crocheting and reading the Irish Echo and whatever else she can get her hands on, said Sister Alphonsina Molloy, the mother superior.
“Her only problem is she’s deaf,” Molloy said. “But she’s still as sharp as a tack.”
Since turning 100, Sister Victor has received an annual birthday medal from the president of her native Ireland.
“She is not afraid to die,” Molloy said. “She lives for the day.”
So is Sister Victor, who will be 109 years old in 170 days, the oldest New Jerseyan?
She isn’t. Adele Dunlap is more than a year older.
The Hunterdon County Democrat reported that the Newark- born Dunlap celebrated her 110th birthday Dec. 12 at the Country Arch Care Center in Pittstown.
“When I was a kid, I used to joke that I was going to live forever,” Dunlap told the newspaper. She wasn’t joking. For information on the Guinness World Record attempt at the Regency Heritage in Somerset, contact Marie Barnes at 732995-3934 or mbarnes@ regencynursing.com. Participants must be 100 years or older by May 19.